1 LEMON WATER FIRST
Drinking lemon water as soon as you wake up spikes your energy levels, gives you steady, natural energy that lasts all day by improving nutrient absorption in your stomach. You need to drink lemon water first thing in the morning (on an empty stomach) to ensure full absorption. Wait 15-30 minutes after drinking it before eating (perfect time to squeeze in some exercise). Lemons are packed with nutrients; they’re chock full of potassium, vitamin C, and antioxidants. Don’t drink the juice without water because it’s hard on your teeth.
2 EXERCISE
Getting your body moving releases GABA, a neurotransmitter that makes your brain feel soothed and keeps you in control of your impulses. Exercising first thing in the morning ensures that you’ll have the time for it, and it improves your self-control and energy levels all day long.
3 NO SCREEN TIME UNTIL A REAL BREAKFAST
Take those precious first moments of the day to do something relaxing that sets a calm, positive tone for your day. Jumping right into electronics has the opposite effect—it’s a frantic way to start your day. Exercising, meditating, or even watching the birds out the window are all great ways to start the day.
Eating anything at all for breakfast puts you ahead of a lot of people, it makes you less likely to be obese, have more stable blood-sugar levels, and be less hungry over the course of the day. And these are just the statistics for people who eat any breakfast. When you eat a healthy breakfast, the doors to a productive day swing wide open. A healthy breakfast gives you energy, improves your short-term memory, and helps you to concentrate more intensely and for longer periods.
4 SET GOALS FOR THE DAY
Having concrete goals is correlated with huge increases in confidence and feelings of control. Setting goals specific to the day puts everything into motion. Narrow your goals down to a few achievable ones that can easily be broken down into steps.
GETTING YOUR MORNING STARTED OFF RIGHT AT HOME IS IMPORTANT, BUT IT’S ONLY HALF THE BATTLE. IF YOU FAIL TO MAINTAIN THAT TONE ONCE YOU SET FOOT IN THE OFFICE, YOUR MORNING CAN LOSE MOMENTUM QUICKLY. HERE’S HOW YOU CAN MAINTAIN A PRODUCTIVE TONE ONCE YOU HIT THE OFFICE:
5 FIRST, CLEAN YOUR WORKSPACE
Even though it’s a pain to clean right when you get into work, it makes a big difference to your ability to concentrate. A Princeton University study found that people who worked in a clean workspace outperformed those who worked in a cluttered one because clutter pulls your attention away from your work. In fact, the effects of clutter on concentration are not all that different from the effects of multitasking.
6 NO E-MAIL UNTIL YOU’VE EATEN THREE FROGS
“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” – Mark Twain
“Eating a frog” is the greatest antidote to procrastination, and the most productive people know the importance of biting into this delicacy first thing in the morning. In other words, spend your morning on something that requires a high level of concentration that you don’t want to do, and you’ll get it done in short order. Make a habit of eating three frogs before you check your e-mail because e-mail is a major distraction that enables procrastination and wastes precious mental energy.
7 ASSIGN TIMES TO YOUR TO-DO LIST, AND MONITOR YOUR PROGRESS AGAINST YOUR GOALS
To-do lists are helpful for making sure you don’t forget anything, but beyond that, they can be misleading. For example, if you have three hours of meetings and eight hours of work, chances are you won’t be able to get everything done. However, a typical to-do list doesn’t tell you that you have eight hours of work; it only tells you that you have ten things you need to do. When you add time frames to your do-list, it becomes exponentially more effective. It pushes you to avoid procrastinating or multitasking in order to complete things within the allotted time. It also shows you what is and isn’t feasible so that you can prioritise your day accordingly.
There’s no point in setting goals in the morning if you don’t check in on them. Look at what you’ve done so far with a critical eye. If you realise you’re behind schedule or doing a shoddy job, it’s important to adjust your goals or your work ethic so that you can move intentionally through your day.
8 KEEP MORNING MEETINGS ON SCHEDULE
Meetings are the biggest time-waster there is, and they can ruin an otherwise productive morning. People who use their mornings effectively know that a meeting will drag on forever if they let it, so they inform everyone at the onset that they’ll stick to the intended schedule. This sets a limit that motivates everyone to be more focused and efficient. Keep your morning meetings on time, and your entire day will stay on track.
9 DON’T MULTITASK
Multitasking in the morning—when you have lots to do, tons of energy, and it feels like you can do two or three things at once—is tempting, but it sets your whole day back. Research conducted at Stanford University confirmed that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information cannot pay attention, recall information, or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time
But what if some people have a special gift for multitasking? The Stanford researchers compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers (those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance) were worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organising their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch!
Multitasking reduces your efficiency and performance because your brain can only focus adequately on one thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.
10 SAY NO
No is a powerful word that will protect your precious mornings. When it’s time to say no, avoid phrases such as “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honours your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfil them while your mind is fresh. Research conducted at the University of California in San Francisco showed that the more difficulty that you have to say no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Learn to use no, and it will lift your mood as well as your productivity.
The right morning routine can make every day. Be intentional about your mornings, understanding that a.m. hours are precious and should be handled with care.